


Self Preservation

by lasergirl



Series: Environmental Control [2]
Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Deaf Character, M/M, OCD Character, deaf!Clint
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-03-24
Updated: 2017-07-12
Packaged: 2017-12-06 07:21:29
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 14,738
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/732948
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lasergirl/pseuds/lasergirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Following the events of "Environmental Control," Clint and Phil negotiate dating by spending some time together at a rare card auction. As it turns out, Hurricane Sandy interferes with even the best-laid plans.</p><p>Environmental Control-verse where Clint is a bike messenger and Phil works in an archival lab.</p><p>My thanks to Nikara for helping me timeline Sandy making landfall. What would I do without the internet??</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Accessiblity/sensitivity issues:
> 
> Phil has OCD and is coping with it well. He is mostly touch-phobic with influences of germ-phobia, with an aversion to surfaces that have stuff spilled on them (coffee, pollen, etc). **I will warn if it ever becomes necessary for story purposes to have him ceasing to cope**
> 
> EDIT TO ADD: In Chapter 4, Phil has a panic attack because of circumstances up to and because of a single-vehicle accident. He uses an emergency dose of meds to treat himself.
> 
> Clint is (in his words) "deaf as shit" and wears hearing aids sometimes, but not always. He speaks and signs (and texts, terribly).

The lock is jammed. Again, and his phone is dead and it's pissy cold October rain outside, and he's soaked to the skin. It's been raining all day, and the weather's supposed to get worse. Clint curses at the stupid lock, and rattles the door in futility. 

He feels the door lock click against his keys, and it swings inwards with a jerk. Thankfully, Clint hauls his bike inside, muttering his thanks. If Loki says anything back he can't hear it.  
His company, Hawkeye Courier, doesn't really have an office. It has a grimy glass door for what had been a pharmacy sixty years ago, and there was a space with a futon that was going to be a waiting room, but was now the living room for the awkward, triangular space that Clint shared with his two roommates. He'd advertised for only one, but the rent was cheaper split three ways.

His roommate Loki (okay, Luke) was stalled halfway through art college. He used the front part of the triangular apartment with the windows as a studio, even though he hadn't picked up a paintbrush in months. There were unfinished canvases and posters all over the place. He had been going through a street art phase when he moved in and had tagged the crumbly brick wall with a neon green "LOKI" because he wanted to be known by his artist name, and the nickname had stuck.

The entrance is dominated by bicycles when Loki and Clint are home. They installed industrial hooks on the wall instead of leaving their bikes outside to get trashed, and these function as a coat rack, hat stand and laundry line most of the time. Clint hikes his front wheel onto the hook and peels off his soaked hoodie, cargo shorts and sneakers, then pads to his tiny bedroom in his long underwear. He sets his phone to charge, his electronics to dry out, and debates having a shower. As his phone slowly comes back to life, it buzzes. He glances at the screen.

BLOCKED NUMBER [Text message waiting]

This was Phil. Phil of the suits and ties that Clint was maybe-seeing. Maybe because they were still working on it, seeing at least was a thing that had happened on a semi-regular basis. They'd had drinks three times so far, and once Phil had asked him if maybe they could go to Clint's comic store on a night it wasn't too busy, but they hadn't decided when that was yet. Clint wiggled out of his wet shirt and thumbed the phone.

BLOCKED: Hey Clint. I'm taking some of my cards to a dealer in Northcourt Sunday afternoon if you wanted to see them. The not so good ones. I can pick you up at 1200 if you're free.

He grins. 12:00 from Phil means 12:00 exactly, no earlier nor later, which was actually something Clint liked. His whole day ran on other people's schedules and it was nice when someone made an effort to be on time for things instead of making him wait.

646-555-2797: ill be done morning deliveries around 11 so yeah id love to theres weather coming tho. I can meet u somewhere im close to the subway

He can almost feel Phil's shuddering reaction through the phone. Phil has a thing about… well, a lot of things. Clint mentioned the subway only because he knew Phil would have something to say about it. Of course, he does:

BLOCKED: Please don't. I will pick you up. Where is your last delivery?

646-555-2797: I finish near stark tower so I can meet u in the lobby? or wait with nat I guess.

BLOCKED: It's easier to get to the parking level from my floor, so come up and I will meet you at reception.

646-555-2797: ur not working on sunday tell me 

BLOCKED: It's a half day to cover extra time off. 

646-555-2797 sounds great don’t worry I wont touch anything in ur car except the radio  
646-555-2797: and the seat controls  
646-555-2797: oh and the air vents

BLOCKED: That's not funny.

646-555-2797: I disagree because its hilarious :DDDDDDD

He adds the extra emoticon faces to make sure that Phil knows he's kidding. So what, Clint knows everyone has their own particular habits about stuff. He's obsessive himself about his bike (his livelihood, after all,) and Phil's need for hand sanitizer is actually a pretty good idea in his opinion. Certainly since meeting Phil he's been a lot more careful when washing his hands, especially since he has someone to sign with on a regular basis.

BLOCKED: Don't make me put you in the back seat. I have child locks.

He runs the water as hot as he can get it, letting the heat start to unwind his aching muscles. The weather had caused some close calls on the streets: New York drivers had no idea what to do when the roads got wet. He'd managed to avoid getting smashed by a garbage truck but cracked his shoulder on a taxi and there's a pretty nice-sized bruise forming now.

He guesses by the lack of a third bike in the hall that Thor's not going to be home tonight. Thor is Loki's step-brother, and he's an obscenely good-looking blonde guy embroiled in a tempestuous relationship with his on-again, off-again girlfriend. He'd come over from Europe on an exchange and somehow had forgotten to go back. Thor basically talked in capital letters, and Clint liked him even though things tended to break a lot when he was around.

The hot water starts to peter out and Clint hops out before it goes ice-cold. He's feeling a little bit more human as he towels off and digs around the crap on top of his dresser for his hearing aids.

"Hey Loki?" He yells out to the living room. "Can we get a lock guy here this weekend maybe? That thing is pissing me off!"

"Thor said it was fixed when he put graphite in it." Loki sounds irritated already, even though Clint hasn't said a totally of twenty words to him yet. He's great with logistics and technology, which was why Clint had hired him as the dispatcher for Hawkeye, but he's terrible with people.

"Well obviously it's not," Clint mutters, and he finds the yellow pages and throws it into the front room at Loki. "Call someone, I don't care who. Just get it fucking fixed before the end of the weekend."

"Oh, that reminds me," there's a thump as Loki tosses the yellow pages off the futon and he comes to Clint's bedroom doorway. "Widow emailed about the scramble on Wednesday. Wants to know if you need a third for the team. Since my idiot brother seems to be missing in action, I told her yeah. Is that okay?"

"Oh, crap, the Monster Smash is this week?" Oh, Clint remembers, yes of course it is because it's Halloween soon. "Yeah. I'll put her on the roster."

The Monster Smash is their neighbourhood's courier rally race-slash-costume party. There's a 10k scramble that includes a route through a subway stop, a parking garage - with stairs - and a taxi lot with a mean dog. It starts and ends at the Missing Link, a bike shop and coffee place run by a couple (an actual couple) of ex-couriers. Steve quit courier work when he got into art school and Bucky had to take leave when he had a run-in with a storm drain that broke his shoulder in about five places. He never really got quite back to full strength, but by that time they'd established a routine and lots of good, cheap food. They serve up big portions and don't complain about the clientele, and Clint eats there a lot at the end of his route when he's too tired to get home. Which was mostly always, at least until he met Phil.

He still gets a little goofy when he thinks about Phil. Phil and him, whatever the weird thing they have between them could be called. Clint hesitates to call it a relationship because he's not really sure how that's going to work out, but whatever it is, he likes seeing Phil after work, at the one of three acceptable places on Phil's list of acceptable places, and just spending time being… well, just being. Together.

"Is your friend going to come?" Loki's ignored the yellow pages outright and is heading back to the pile of papers and wires around the futon that looks like a rat's nest.

"Uh, I don't know if that's his kind of thing." Clint hadn't even thought about asking Phil along. "I think it might be out of his comfort zone. Which is kind of narrow."

Loki shrugs. "I just wanted to see the guy who'd spend fifteen hundred bucks on a piece of cardboard. And someone who likes you. I don’t know anyone who fits either of those categories."

"Oh har har." Clint mutters. He pulls on his favourite jeans and the warmest hoodie he owns, and wanders into the kitchen to find food. He'd grabbed a couple of street tacos around noon but the afternoon was so busy he didn't get a chance to eat and he's ravenous.

Ugh. The fridge is a science experiment, which is what happens when Thor's not home to make Loki do his share of the housework. Clint had tried to keep on top of the biohazards but with Loki running dispatch, he was home more than either of them. A solid block of ice has grown in the freezer and enveloped a year-old carton of Ben and Jerry's. There's something that might have been pasta salad in a takeaway container, but it's orange and purple, and then there's a swollen jug of milk and something wrapped in tinfoil that's leaking slime into the crisper. None of the things are remotely edible.

He snaps a photo of the disaster on his smart phone and texts it to Thor with a quick "wish you were here" attached to it. He's going to have to go out for dinner tonight. Tomorrow he can dump the fridge and go wherever he's going with Phil.

His phone buzzes. 

THOR O: COME TO THE LINK! WIDOW AND I ARE ENJOYING SOME DELIGHTFUL BEVERAGES AND WANT FOR YOUR COMPANY

Oh, yeah, Thor not only speaks in capital letters, he likes to text that way too. Clint pauses a moment, debating whether to pretend he never got the message when his phone buzzes again.

Widow: Sif dumped Thor again. I can't tell if he's mourning or celebrating. I'm going to kneecap him.

646-555-2797: I got a thing with phil tmrw so not to late ok

Widow: I'll tell him you have tuberculosis if you don't rescue me.

That makes Clint bark with laughter. Phil would have so much of a problem with that, holy shit. He texts back and grabs a dry jacket.

646-555-2797: Ill be right there order me some of buckys chilli and like 4 burritos im starving weather is the shits

This is how Clint ends up squished into a booth next to a burly, drunk Scandinavian, elbow-deep in beer and burritos, stuffing his face while Thor bellows lists of things he likes about his maybe-ex-girlfriend.

"SHE HAS THE FINEST BOTTOM," Thor waxes poetically, sloshing the top part of his most recent pint onto the corner of the table. Clint moves his drink out of harm's way and stuffs his mouth full of burrito so he doesn't explode with laughter. "FINER THAN THE RIPEST PEACHES."

And Nat's sitting across from the two of them, deep in her Black Widow persona. Clint find that it's hard to tell which one's the real Nat sometimes, the sharply-dressed-and-impersonal Stark Industries major domo, or the black leather and lycra messenger that he'd first met when he'd ended up in New York City. She's got one knee up against the edge of the table, wedged into the corner of the booth, and the lines between her eyebrows show she's texting something complicated on her phone.

Knowing he won't be heard over Thor's heartsick reminiscing, Clint drops her a couple of signs across the table. "Whatcha doing?"

"Work," she rolls her eyes. "Banner's having a tantrum about lab equipment but Stark's in Dubai. Have to wait until Thursday at least."

"AND HER LIPS ARE DELICIOUS AS RIPE RASPBERRIES," Thor shakes Clint by the shoulder and Clint thumps his arm forcefully to show his support.

"How's Phil?" He's altered the finger spelling of Phil's name to just a sign incorporating the 'p' and the motion of straightening a tie. At least he had in his head, it was funny to have the motion just come to him. Widow grins at him.

"You like him, that's so ridiculously cute. He tried to talk to me about you. He's afraid of me, you know?"

"I hate you tell you this, but a lot of people are afraid of you." Not Clint, at least not most of the time; he'd worked with her long enough to know when her unreadable expressions meant things were totally fine, and which ones were the 'duck and cover' hints. "Yeah he's different. I like him. What did he say?"

She shook her head. "He never says what he's actually thinking. I think he was trying to tell me that he enjoyed your date."

"Oh my god, it was not a date! Tomorrow I have a date. We're going somewhere. He's selling his cards somewhere."

"IF SHE WERE THE MOON THE SUN WOULD FALL OUT OF ITS ORBIT TO GAZE ON HER FACE! THE STARS DO NOT GLEAM AS BRIGHTLY AS HER EYES!"

Natasha raises her eyebrows. "That's really important. He's a big deal in the collector circles. Have you read any of his journal articles?"

Clint shakes his head, ducking Thor's massive forearm as he swings another pint through the air and towards his mouth. "He said that his stuff wasn't that interesting."

"I can't believe you aren't internet stalking your boyfriend."

"I told you he's not my boyfriend!"

"BUT CLINT, IF I ONLY HAD ANOTHER CHANCE WITH HER SHE MIGHT SEE MY REGRETS AND FORGIVE ME!"

Clint pats him on the arm. "Hey, big guy, I'm sure she'd forgive you. What did you do?"

"ALAS I WAS OVERLY AMOROUS AND BROKE THE FRAME OF HER SOFA."

Natasha couldn't stifle her laughter, but Clint just shook his head. That kind of thing happened all the time when Thor was around, just another reason he was secretly kind of glad that he spent so much time out of the apartment.

"Hey, Thor," Clint suggests, "you could always offer to take her shopping for a new one."

Thor's face widens into an amazing grin. Clint's got to hand it to the guy, as awkward and huge as he is, he's ridiculously good-looking.

"SHE LOVES IKEA! I SHALL PROPOSE THIS TO HER RIGHT AWAY!" He exclaims, and practically squashes Clint in his haste to remove himself from the table. He has his phone out and is shouting at the voice recognition program as he rushes out the door.

Clint sighs a deep breath out and wiggles further into the booth. In his pocket, his phone buzzes. He pulls it out and glances at it.

"I'm emailing you links," Natasha says loudly, by way of explanation. She doesn't look up from her phone. "Stop being a dumbass."

"I'm not a dumbass." He just really doesn't like reading that much. Clint changes the subject before she can dig into him any more. "Loki said you're in for the Smash on Wednesday."

"Of course. We have to uphold your reputation as the most badass New York independent." She grins fiendishly. "And it's been ages since I got to take my bike out. I need to let off some steam."

Natasha on a bicycle was a fearsome thing, as Clint could attest to. The rules of the road (and gravity) were more like guidelines for her, and she drafted buses and hitched on cabs when it was convenient. If there had been some way to hook up to a subway train, Clint was pretty sure Natasha would be the one to perfect it.

"I'll get Steve to add you to the board," Clint looks over at the grimy chalkboard behind the bar where Steve was tallying the team rosters and odds. Team Hawkeye was running a little lower than usual, probably because Thor was so unreliable lately. "You got a costume?"

She shrugs. "I already wear one for my day job. Halloween is my 'me' day."

Oh, yeah, there's a reason that Clint and Natasha are still friends. He was worried that they'd fall out of touch when she landed her first reception job and had to hang up the spandex for a while, but no matter how many times she got promoted or headhunted, she never forgot. And even though Hawkeye Courier wasn't the most professional outfit, she always trusted him with the most important jobs because she knew he wouldn't screw them up.

Clint wanders to the bar to pay his tab and flags down Steve. He's another ridiculously good-looking blonde guy, but has the kind of clean-cut hair and jaw line that makes Clint think of Second World War recruiting posters.

"Hey, Hawk, what's up?" Steve gives him a big handshake and a smile. "Haven't seen you around too much lately. You okay?

"Uh, yeah, I'm kinda seeing someone." Clint rubs his hand across the back of his neck, feeling his face flush a bit. Somehow getting teased by Natasha is fine, but he's always had a minor crush on Steve and he's surprised at his own reaction. "I met him on a job. He's a friend of Widow's."

"You should bring him along." Steve rifles through the paper receipts next to the cash and finds Clint's number. "There's a squad of newbies running their first scramble this year. I'm going to stick with them so they don't get hurt."

"Mm, he doesn't bike but I might ask him." Clint's trying to imagine how that might play out and is coming up short. He can't ask Phil to come to this weird, noisy, grimy café.

"How can you date someone who doesn't bike?" Steve rings him up on the clunky cash register. "Okay, that's twelve bucks even" 

"You think I only care about biking?" Clint digs in his pockets for money. "Are you sure it's twelve? It's gotta be more than that, I had like three pints."

"I added it to Thor's tab because he was taking up so much space," Steve grins and waves off Clint's attempts to give him another ten-dollar bill. "Don't worry about it."

"Thanks, man." Clint catches Natasha's eye across the bar, and remembers. "Oh, yeah, and can you put Widow in for Thor instead? The kind of night he's having I don't think we'll see him this week at all."

"Sure thing." Steve wipes off Thor's name and adds in 'Black Widow' between 'Hawk' and 'Loki' on the board. There's a mutter from one of the closer tables that Clint can't really hear. Steve shakes his head. "Huh, looks like the odds are gonna change pretty quick, I think. You sure you don't want to get in on the high numbers?"

"Nah." Clint's not really a betting kind of guy. He'd rather have a sure buck in his pocket than waste it being greedy. "Think I'm fine. I'll see ya."

Nat's smiling to herself when he gets back to the table. He scootches into the booth to grab his jacket. 

"What?"

"You told him about Phil," she shrugs. "And I think you're cute when you blush."

He huffs in annoyance, but gives her a half-hug anyway. "I'm leaving. I'm not even asking why can you read lips better than me."

Natasha pats him on the arm. "I could read lips before I met you, sweetie."

"Ugh. I hate you. See you Wednesday."

"Can't wait," she grins. And she signs "Good luck with Phil," at him as he's heading out the door. She uses the namesign Clint made up and he smiles in spite of himself. He mouths "Thanks" back at her and knows she understands.

**

The weather's worse on his bike ride home, but the traffic on the streets has thinned. Maybe with the threat of this tropical storm thing people have decided to stay at home instead of clogging the streets with their vehicles. Clint's happy he can cut across three lanes and make a left turn without even having to slow his pace, and he makes it home in record time.

The lock, surprisingly, admits him on the first try, and after he strips out of his wet gear for the second time that day, he sees Loki in the living room, hunched over the greenish glow of his laptop.

"Are you still planning deliveries for tomorrow?" He scowls at the screen and then through a crack in the ragged curtains, judging the weather outside.

"Yeah, I got morning regulars. What's up?"

"The city's shutting down like it's the apocalypse," Loki says. He swivels the laptop to show Clint the real time simulation of New York's traffic and transitways he'd coded to dispatch for Hawkeye. "The subways are closing tomorrow night. All the cab companies are freaking out."

"The roads aren't going to wash away, so I'll be alright." Clint shrugs. "I'm done by 11 anyway. I've got a thing in the afternoon so I'm gonna take it off."

Loki shakes his head as he turns the computer around and taps at the keyboard again. "No problem. I don't have any afternoon pickups requested. I'll just block off the rest of the schedule."

"Sure, that's fine."

Clint forgoes a second shower, not wanting to overtax the hot water heater, and instead just dries off with a ragged towel as he brushes his teeth. He'll shower in the morning before he heads out, even though that means he'll end up being soaking wet by 11am anyway. Maybe he'll just stick a clean pair of pants in a drysack so he can look good for Phil.

Mm, which reminds him, Nat emailed him stuff that he hasn't had a chance to even open, so maybe it's time to just head to bed with his phone and call it quits.

It's a relief to shed his hearing aids for the night. They don't hurt, but they're awkward sometimes and they hit on his helmet when he's biking, which is really annoying. He crawls under the covers and scrolls through his phone for a bit, reading bits and pieces of what Nat's sent him. 

There's a couple of Wikipedia articles that have clearly been edited by someone who knows that they're talking about (the stuff about statistics he just knows is Phil, because he's got those numbers memorized). There's a link to a many-thousands-of-words pdf that makes his eyes cross (it's Phil's doctoral thesis), and then a short little address that takes him to a blogging site. He's not expecting much, but when it loads he can't help but smile. 

Every week on his blog, Phil has posted high-resolution photos of his cards, with close ups of his restoration work and - this is the best part - stories about where the card came from and the history of the images on it. It's like a little slice of history buff mixed with comic nerd, and it's pretty much the most dedicated and adorable thing Clint's ever seen. 

He's drowsy by the time he gets to the second or third card, and ends up falling asleep halfway through a post about the Chicago airport.

**

_[Front of card: image_053.jpg alt="Captain America hanging onto the wing of a Nazi jet prototype as it bears down on an aircraft carrier at sea"]_

_[Back of card: TERROR IN THE PACIFIC! Can Cap divert the deadly payload of this experimental machine before it reaches our boys at sea?]_

_The main image on card #53 is important in a number of ways. This is one of the nine* cards that are confirmed to be entirely the work of Al Liederman, one of the original comic series inkers. He was not officially involved with the development of the Captain America series of cards, but sketchbook* pages [* in private collection] from around this time show pencil sketches and inked treatments that closely resemble the finished work on these cards [* 22, 26, 47, 48, 53, 65, 69, 72, 80.] His work may be verified on several other cards, but as documentation is scarce these are the only ones I can vouch for at this current time._

_I obtained this card from a private dealer in Chicago, Illinois, in June of 2011. It had been stored, along with several other cards of different makes, between the pages of pulp murder mysteries. The book pages' high acid content had a small effect on this card's preservation, and some chemical buffering was needed to ensure its future stability. There is some wear to the corners but apart from overall foxing the ink colours are bright and the face coating is still slick._

_When I got to my seat, the flight had been so overbooked that there was nowhere to put my carry on bag. The cabin staff were checking everyone's bags so I had to take the card envelope out and put it in my e-reader case to make sure I didn't lose it in case my bag didn't make it back to La Guardia. I was worried that the cabin humidity might degrade the condition but I'm glad to say my concern was unwarranted._


	2. Chapter 2

Phil sees him through the glass when Clint arrives at Stark Medical reception at 11:15. His last scheduled delivery of the morning is usually some top-secret update from Tony Stark's R&D office to the Stark Medical Tower. Even with all the technology in the world, sometimes there's still things that rely on paper and secrecy. Good for Clint too, or he'd be out of a job.

Clint saunters across reception, digging the sealed courier pack out of his messenger bag to hand to Natasha. "Last one."

She takes the packet and passes him a clipboard where Clint has to sign for the delivery. He scribbles something across the line that approximates his name, and then leans against the smoky Plexiglas of her desk while she countersigns.

"I read some of that stuff you sent me," he says, and his attention travels past Nat's domain and through the fishbowl glass to where he can see the lab space that is Phil's clean room. Usually, Clint can see him from here but right now there's no sign of him. "He's kinda intense."

"I thought you'd figured that out by now." Natasha stamps the received packet and rises from her chair. Her glance follows Clint's back towards the lab. "You'll have to excuse me a moment, I have to deliver this to Dr. Banner."

She stalks away, cool and purposeful, leaving Clint hanging out awkward and alone in the reception area. It doesn't seem right to sit down in the waiting area, not when he's there for a different reason. He watches Natasha's scarlet head bob through the glass maze, then she passes behind an etched glass panel and is reduced to a blur that shortly vanishes. Clint leans against the wall, sighing. 

A few moments pass, while Clint watches people passing through the layers of frosted and clear glass, and then Phil comes into view. He's folding a lab coat carefully into a square, already redressed from the clean room. He pauses, has words with a colleague, and deposits the lab coat somewhere Clint can't see. Then Phil looks over towards reception. Clint waves.

"I'm finishing up in here," Phil signs back to him. "Five minutes."

It's five short minutes that Clint uses to sign out with Loki on his last delivery of the day, and to make sure that he's (mostly) presentable. His bike is stashed in a relatively secure place, where he knows a couple of other couriers live or work, and they'll keep an eye on it.

Phil comes out promptly, carrying a small package and Clint feels that little happy wiggle of excitement he always does when Phil smiles at him. He knows that Phil's guarded a lot of the time, but the smile's always genuine.

"Hey," Clint says, trying to sound nonchalant. "What's that?"

Phil glances down at his cargo, a white cardboard box wrapped in plastic. "The cards for auction. I store them in the archives here because they're more secure."

"Can I see them?" Clint asks as Phil swipes his fob and waits for the elevator. "I mean not right now, obviously." He watches Phil for any signs of anxiety, but Phil only shrugs mildly.

"The appraiser will want to check them against his records when we get to the auction house. I usually handle them until the agent gives them a lot number." The elevator arrives and swooshes open, and Phil lets him on first. "You'll have plenty of opportunity to look at them while I sign the paperwork."

"Cool!" Clint grins. "'Cause I was reading some of your stuff on the internet and the artwork looks really awesome. I love that old school style. My roommate was working on some stuff that sorta looked like that."

"Comic art has influenced a lot of contemporary artists," Phil nods. "And not just comic book artists. You'd be surprised how modern some of the old art looks."

"That reminds me, we still have to check out my awesome local store," Clint says, "My friend Darcy works there and I know she'd love to talk to you about this stuff too."

The elevator slides to a stop. "I'll see what I can do," Phil says. Which isn't a 'no,' really, but Clint recognizes it's also a 'wait and see.' "Okay, my car's this way."

And wow, Phil has a really nice car. It's a shiny black SUV thing with tinted windows and power everything, and black leather seats that Clint's pretty sure he's ruining just by getting into. He reaches for his seatbelt self-consciously as Phil stows his precious cargo on the floor in the back seat.

"The drive's about 45 minutes once we get out of the city, do you want to stop for lunch or something before we leave?" Phil rubs sanitizer into his hands after getting in and before pulling the door shut.

"I had a couple power bars, but I can always eat. Do you have a place?"

Phil nods, "There's a diner in Northcourt that does surprisingly good pancakes if you can wait that long. And cheesecake. And pretty much everything."

Clint's a terrible passenger, they soon discover, and Phil is a really great driver. Clint flinches through a couple of yellow light intersections and lane changes before he realizes what he's doing. At a red light, Phil looks over at him.

"Clint?"

"I never ride in cars," Clint shifts in his seat, trying to keep his feet from fidgeting. "The subway's really about it, and weirdly that makes me carsick." At Phil's concerned expression, Clint waves his hands. "No! No! I'm not gonna be sick now."

"I take a defensive driving course every year and I've never had an accident," Phil motions to the glove compartment. "There's documentation in there. Also I put some comics on my e-reader in case you got bored."

"Mm, I like distractions." Clint clicks open the compartment and retrieves the reader. "Ooh Captain America, what a surprise! Just poke me if you can't get my attention."

"I'd rather not," Phil replies drily, but he's smiling and Clint turns his attention to the four-colour panels until the motion of the car and the light quality tells him that they're finally getting out of the city. He hazards a glance out the window, then at Phil. The traffic has thinned out, it's raining, and they're officially on their way. Clint puts the reader back to sleep and stretches out the kinks in his neck.

"Better?"

"Just read the story where he's trapped in a u-boat full of Hitler super-clones. Man, he's a badass."

Phil chuckles. "You can see why I thought he was the best thing when I was a kid. Well, and now, too. But especially then. My Mom used to get me reprints off the news stand when I was sick. Which was kind of a lot." Phil rubs a hand across his chest, tight in a line parallel to his tie. He does this often, Clint's noticed, but has never asked why. Phil's got lots of interesting layers he doesn't have to have explained to understand.

"My brother used to steal comics from the guy who distributed the papers for his newspaper route," Clint says. He hasn't thought about that in years, isn't even sure he knows where Barney is right now, doesn't know why he's sharing this with Phil. "I helped out until he figured out that stealing stuff and selling it was a lot easier than working for money. That wasn't as awesome."

"I really wanted a paper route," Phil says a little wistfully, keeping his eyes on the road where it stretches out grey and slick ahead of them. "It was probably the idea of having a bike. Being able to go anywhere, not having someone drive you."

"Yeah when I got to borrow my brother's bike it was pretty cool. Nobody could catch me, I was so fast. But then we had to move so much he ended up selling it to someone. I didn't get my own until way later." Clint shrugs. "What about you?"

"Well, I didn't learn to ride a bike until I was in college," Phil admits with a reluctant smile. "Yeah, I know. I was a lab nerd. High school was kind of a wash for me."

"Yeah high school's overrated. I never really fit in after we moved around so much." And then, when Clint was sixteen he'd finally put his foot down, said he really wanted to finish the school year at one school, and Barney had ditched him overnight. That was also the year his hearing loss became apparent and he ended up flunking out anyway. The thought sobers him, and he scowls. "Everything was kinda shitty until I moved to New York and got some real friends."

"Funny, I was going to say the same thing," Phil glances sideways at him, and Clint doesn't feel quite so horrible anymore.

"I really hope you have more friends than just me, Phil." Clint shakes his head.

"What, therapists and doctors don't count as friends?" Clint isn't sure if he's joking until he sees the genuine smile on Phil's face.

"You gotta be joking."

"Even socially-anxious people can have friends," Phil states triumphantly. "That's why they created the internet!"

"Goddammit, Phil," Clint bursts out laughing, and it's just what he needs to dispel that hard knot of nerves that builds up at the back of his neck when he thinks about all the stupid stuff that happened so long ago. "Ok, you are officially the nerdiest person I know. And I have a programmer who wrote me special code to do courier stuff I don't even understand."

Phil seems pretty smug with himself after that, and they manage to talk about less soul-searching things for the rest of the drive. Which doesn't take too long, because after half an hour they're off the freeway onto a rural highway that's only two lanes, heading towards Northcourt. A diner sign flashes by in the rain, red and white with seriously retro font.

"Pancakes," says Phil as he slows and puts on his turn signal.


	3. Chapter 3

"Wake up, we're here."

To be fair, Clint always gets sleepy after he eats. It's just usually he's working and his metabolism burns through anything he puts in his stomach after a half an hour. Putting him in a cushy leather seat with heaters after feeding him the most pancakes ever, well, Phil was pretty much just asking for disaster.

Clint raises his head from where he's almost drooling on himself and rubs the sleepiness out of his eyes. Phil's pulled precisely into a parking spot and the car isn't even running anymore.

"Uh, how long was I asleep?"

"Fifteen minutes. We've only been parked for five." Phil glances out the rain-beaded windshield. "I would have left you alone but it's stopped raining temporarily so it's probably a good time to head inside."

"Errgh," Clint yawns and stretches and shakes himself out. "I told you to poke me. I fall asleep in cars, even if I got my ears in I'm never gonna hear you."

Phil rubs the pads of his fingers together and makes tense fists against the steering wheel. "Maybe next time."

Duh. Fuck. "Shit, I didn't mean-" Clint smacks his own forehead with one hand. "I'm a dumbass. Sorry, just yell at me."

"There's no reason to be sorry," Phil sighs, "It's a reasonable expectation. This is what I mean when I said there's rules. It's complicated." He looks so miserable.

"What is it?"

Phil looks at him. "Pardon?"

"What's the rule? I need to know it so I can tell you one of mine. Is that fair?"

Phil's hands relax a little and he takes a couple of breaths. "Purposeful touching requires gloves. There's no way I can do that in here, because the car is clean." His fingers slide along the curve of the steering wheel. "Outside is different. Outside is usually not clean, which is why I have gloves and sanitizer."

Clint nods. "My rule is if you have to touch me, don't go for the back of my head or my ears. I'm kinda sensitive about that."

He can see Phil processing the information, adding it to his internal database of regulations, then he nods in response. "Fair enough."

"Now we'd better get moving if you don't want to get rained on!" Clint releases his seatbelt and swings his door open. "Want me to hold your door and you can get your cards?"

Phil looks so relieved that Clint can't help but feel that he's on the path to becoming a pretty awesome boyfriend. He opens the car door so Phil can retrieve the white cardboard box from its place of honour, and then when they reach the building, Clint grabs the big fancy brass rail and sticks his hip against the glass door so Phil doesn't have to worry about brushing against the jamb.

There's a dry-erase board standing in the lobby with a poster stuck at the top with fancy letters proclaiming 'ANTIQUARIAN BOOKS AND COLLECTIBLES AUCTION 2ND FLOOR' and an arrow drawn below it pointing to the left stating 'REGISTRATION AND APPRAISALS' and he follows slightly behind Phil down the appropriate hallway. The room looks like an old gymnasium and a ring of tables covered in white tablecloths line the walls. There are no windows.

Huh. Clint's never been to an auction like this before. He thought it would be like the ones on tv, people all yelling and flashing wads of money around and buying somebody's old motorbike or used pullout couch and trying to make a few bucks. But everyone here looks like hardcore librarians; the people walking around are wearing cotton gloves and some have glasses with three sets of lenses in them. There's a couple of people sitting at the tables wearing white lab coats and blue badges that look important, and under the quiet exterior there's a very hushed kind of energy that reminds Clint of a buzzing beehive. He feels a little out of place in his beat-up leather jacket and faded denim, but when he looks at Phil he gets a nod of reassurance.

"Ah, Phil, it's good to see you again!" This lab coat guy is a shaven-bald-headed black dude with an honest-to-god eye patch over one eye. He has a brilliant smile, but he only uses it once when greeting Phil, and then puts it away and just uses teeth after that. "I wasn't sure if you'd make it. I hear you're in for some bad weather in the city. Who's your associate?"

"Dr. Fury, this is Mr. Barton," Phil stands a measured distance away and introduces them. Fury sticks his hand out. Clint hesitates, then remembers that he's not the one with the rules about handshakes. "He's new to collecting, I'm showing him what it's like. Dr. Fury was my thesis supervisor for my Doctorate."

"Hey," Fury's handshake is unbelievably firm, just verging on too strong. Clint's happy to get his hand back in one piece. "I'm Clint. It's nice to meet you. I'm uh, not a doctor."

"It's nice to have some new blood around here," Fury says. Clint figures it's supposed to sound conversational but the guy's pretty intense so it's maybe a little intimidating. "You should enjoy the auction. Plenty of good items, should be some stiff competition. I got my eye on a 1957 stickered Geisel. Are you buying today, Phil?"

"No, just selling," Phil motions with the small box in his hands. 

"Well, if you don't have to be here, I'd advise you head for higher ground," Fury warns him. "They're saying this storm could be a pretty bad one."

"You know how I am," says Phil with a shrug, "I'll leave when they're sold. My responsibility doesn't end until then."

"Well, you sure as hell don't get to be the best in the business by taking it easy," Fury shakes his head and waves a warning finger at Clint, "Good to meet you Mr. Barton, I hope you learn all you can from Coulson."

"Uh, thanks?" Clint stammers. Fury's kind of more terrifying up close. Fortunately Phil clears his throat gently.

"Ahem. If you'll excuse us, sir, I believe Dr. Hill is now free." There's a slim, dark-haired woman who waves a hand at Phil and motions him down toward her table.

"Of course, of course." Fury scowls at the two of them. "Good luck then. See you when the gavel's ready to drop." He strides away briskly with a flourish of his lab coattails.

"What is he a doctor of, badassery?" Clint says quietly near Phil's ear as they cross the room. "How do you know these people?"

Phil chuckles. "Remember what I said about the internet? Dr. Fury is an antiquarian paper expert." He puts the box down on the tablecloth and puts his hands in his pockets. "Here you are. Clint, I would like you to meet Dr. Hill. She's my authority on mass-produced cellulose-based cultural materials."

"Maria," she says, and her handshake is only a little less bone-crushing that Fury's was, but she's way prettier. The same air of badass hangs about her, but Hill's smile is a lot less frightening. "Phil said he was bringing a friend. You don't look like a card collector."

Clint shrugs. "I'm kinda interested but I don't really know all that much. What does mass-produced cellulose-based cultural material cover?"

"Newspapers, magazines, postcards, that sort of thing," Maria has taken possession of Phil's package and is now unwinding the plastic wrapping. "Anything they make a million of because it doesn't last. Now, Phil, is this the same lot I appraised a couple of months ago? The 1953 Captain Americas?"

Phil nods. "All of my extra singles. They've been in storage since I completed the set. It just doesn't feel right having them hanging around."

Hill's lifting out a row of cardboard and clear plastic stuff with cotton-gloved hands. She lays them down one by one, and it's the first time Clint gets to see the things that Phil's obsessed with firsthand.

"Whoa." The art's brighter than he thought it would be, vivid royal blue and yellow and scarlet red with black lines, sharp and clear through the little windows cut in the envelopes. "They look brand new."

"Technically they range from Near Mint to Mint," Phil says with a pleasant tone, "Hardly any restoration apart from superficial cleaning. The #37 missed being a Gem Mint by being packaged next to the wax paper when it was manufactured."

Clint leans down close to the cards, and sees what he thinks Phil's talking about. The card's face shows a glossy print of a robot trying to crush Captain America with its giant claw. "You mean that blobby stain next to Cap's junk? I guess the printing's off a bit too. Looks like it anyway." Phil gives him a kind of weird look when he straightens up again. "What?"

"Novices usually can't see printing errors at that end of the scale without good light and a magnifying glass," Maria says. "You've got excellent eyesight."

"Yeah I guess?" He was known for being able to spot more traffic lights at a distance than any of the other couriers he knew. It made up for his crap hearing a bit, anyway. "Hey, what do you know, I'm a card shark!"

Phil gives him a smirk, but the cards on the table are commanding most of his attention. Maria checks each number off against a sheet of paper on her clipboard, using a magnifying glass to confirm each noted defect.

"You always take such good care of your collections," she muses as she re-examines the wax stain near Captain America's groin. "You ever consider leaving that sloppy maniac of a scientist you work for and settling down in a nice quiet museum somewhere?"

"Dr. Banner may be careless with his papers, but the company is top-notch. Since the merger with Stark Industries, the computer interface was solved and there's a one hundred percent guaranteed generator and climate control in case of emergencies."

"Unlimited supply of sexy black gloves, too," Clint reminds him. Phil stifles what Clint suspects is a choke, a flush appearing on his cheeks.

Hill gives no indication that she's heard Clint's wisecrack, simply passes the clipboard across the table to Phil. "Everything seems to be in order. These are going up in the first quarter of the auction so they'll have to go to staging. Are you maintaining custody?"

Phil takes a pen from his inside pocket and signs the bottom of the form daintily without brushing the paper with his hand. "Yes, but I'm just supervising today. I think Clint volunteered to take care of the cards until they're off the block."

Huh? Clint thinks he didn't hear that right. But Maria nods and gently replaces the cards and plastic stuff back into Phil's little box and pushes it across the table to him.

"Don't I need special gloves or something?"

"Only to satisfy my conscience," Phil motions to another box Clint hadn't really noticed, where a clump of little white cotton gloves are marked 'CLEAN.' "Technically the archival mylar protects the cards but this way you won't get fingerprints on anything."

"Cool." Clint slides on the cotton gloves and takes the box. It's lighter than he expected. He grins. "What next?"

"We've got thirty minutes before the doors open. We can go to staging and you can look at the cards like I promised." Phil smiles at Maria. "Thank you, Dr. Hill."

"Always a pleasure, Dr. Coulson."

Phil and Clint make their way to the second floor staging area, another room filled with rows of tables and little number cards. The tables are laden with boxes and cartons that look like Phil's special box, in a variety of sizes. Fury points them in the direction of Lot 26, their own little section, and returns to guarding the door and bossing around the rest of the people running around in white coats. Clint's pleased to see that everyone seems appropriately intimidated by Fury.

There's the Lot number, and there's a blank space, and a couple of stools, so he and Phil sit there for a bit and Clint gets to look at the cards. They're pretty awesome, apart from being in nearly perfect shape, and the fact that Phil's obviously taken so much time caring for them is endearing. 

"I really like your website where you talk about where you got all these cards. I didn't know they were that rare," Clint says, examining them as Phil sits close to him. It's quiet in the staging room, and surprisingly relaxed. "You're probably gonna make some good money today."

Phil shrugs and looks vaguely uncomfortable. "To be honest, I never collected for the money. I'm selling these because they're not part of a set, and you know how I am. I don't like loose ends."

They've talked about the card collecting before, over drinks, but this time it feels a little different, a little more intimate with all the evidence of Phil's attention here before them. Clint holds the cards reverently, without creasing the mylar as he reads the back of the card out loud:

"DEATH FROM ABOVE! Captain America must avert the cloud of explosives before they reach the ground!" The front of the card shows a skyscape with a hot air balloon in the shape of a bird, a hooded figure deploying a cloud of explosive eggs on tiny parachutes. Captain America is falling among them with a giant butterfly net. "I love this. This one's not on your blog. What's the story for this one?"

Phil smiles and the tension slips a little further off his shoulders. "The art is from an early comic book four-pager, you can tell because it's such a sci-fi kind of storyline. This one's adapted from a Simon piece by an in-house artist. That happened a lot with this company, they contracted a few pieces of art from the original artists, but for the most part they just copied images from already published stories."

"And where did you get it?"

"Ah," and this is where the real Phil comes back, out of the tight stranglehold anxiety had him in. He leans in a little closer, almost conspiratorially. "This one came from a former collector entering the priesthood. He'd decided to divide all his material possessions between the members of an online collector's forum. He said he'd determined who got which one by divine inspiration."

Clint made a face and a faint 'bullshit' gesture with his hands that Phil caught.

"Yeah, I know. I couldn't make these up if I tried. I've been to pretty much every state in the U.S. and Hawaii to collect these cards. There's only a few I've had sent, usually from overseas."

"What are you going to collect now that you've got a complete set?" Immediately, Clint regrets that the question has sprung from his lips, because Phil tenses and his face shuts down. He shrugs tightly and folds his arms across his chest in protection.

"There will be something," he says, but it's too late, that brief moment is wrecked and Clint has to move on.

He replaces the card folders back in the box, wary of Phil's intensity and closeness with every motion. It's 2:00 and the doors are opening. Dr. Hill and several assistants wheel out the first collection towards the auction block, Lots 1-25.

"It'll take about half an hour before we're up, but Dr. Hill will be back to watch the next set. When she comes back, we'll head into the auction hall." Phil explains. "I usually stand in the back, but there's some reserved seats down the side for sellers if you want to be closer to the action."

"How much yelling is there?"

"This isn't like Locker Bandits," Phil says with a smile, "It's pretty quiet. Every bidder has a number like a ping pong paddle. There's no accidental bids or anything by sneezing."

"Oh, whew, because you know I talk with my hands." 

The first chunk of the auction goes by quickly. Clint's surprised when Dr. Hill comes back and signs him out on the clipboard. Phil nods to him Clint puts the box on the display table. A white-coated assistant comes in with tiny easels and arranges the window envelopes so the audience can see, and then they all withdraw. Phil moves to the back of the room and stands close to the wall without touching. His hands are clenched in his pockets and his eyes are closed.

Clint can't really follow the bidding except for how the audience members flash their little numbers, he can't even hear distinct words coming from the auctioneer, it's all just a wobbly bubble of noise. Some of the bidders are warring against each other, sometimes a new bidder flashes from somewhere else in the audience and that's when the auctioneer points them out and at least he can follow that part. The gavel cracks down, and he can see Phil's anxiety visibly evaporate.

"What happens now?"

Phil gives a tight smile. "I don't have to worry about them anymore."

"How much did they sell for? That auction guy, he was kind of hard to follow."

"Enough," Phil says. "The auction house will send it in a bank transfer so we can leave now. Unless you want to stay and watch?"

Phil's being really frustrating, and Clint doesn't know what to say. “The weather? I mean, Dr. Fury said we should head back in case it’s going to be as bad as they say.”

Phil nods. They leave the auction room and head back out to the building’s lobby. The sky outside has grown darker and is swirling with clouds. Clint holds the door and Phil follows him. The humidity in the air slaps him in the face like a wet cloth. Clint turns up the collar of his coat and snags Phil’s car door open and closed before dashing to the other side and getting in himself.

Phil squeezes some hand sanitizer into his palms and rubs them together, eyes closed. He’s running through a breathing routine and Clint just sits there, waiting.

Without opening his eyes, Phil says, “I’m sorry. That was more personal than I thought it would be.” He touches the steering wheel, lightly first with just two fingertips, then wraps his hands around it. The touch seems to ground him and he opens his eyes again. “I’m not used to bringing people to events like this. It’s –“ his hands twitch on the wheel. 

“Intimate?” Clint suggests. He hopes he sounds gentle, not awkward.

“Exactly.” Phil says it like it’s a relief. “The people I work with, they know I go to auctions. They know I collect vintage cards and spend too much time caring for them. But they don’t know what it’s like, or how much it means to me. It’s strange to have someone here with me.”

“Strange good or bad?”

“Different.” Phil cocks his head, thinking. “Good. Better than good. It’s been great with you here. Looking at the cards with you reminded me of how excited I used to be when I started collecting. I’d forgotten some of that. So thank you.”

“Aw, man,” Clint rubs his face in embarrassment and he’s pretty sure he’s blushing a bit. “That’s probably the nicest thing anyone’s said to me.”

Phil smiles, so genuine that the warmth that blooms in Clint’s belly drown out the rest of his conflicted feelings. “I like you a lot, Clint, I’m just not good at showing it.”

“I think you did just right,” Clint assures him, “Pancakes and trading cards are the way to my heart and my stomach. Speaking of which, it’s been like three hours since we ate and I could really go for some of that cheesecake for the ride home. Can we hit up that diner on the way back? My treat?”

Phil laughs as he starts the car’s engine and checks his mirrors. “Of course we can.” They pull smoothly out onto the rural highway and Clint smiles because yeah, Phil is amazing.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Phil and Clint head back into Manhattan during Hurricane Sandy to... not great results, actually.
> 
> EDIT TO ADD: Phil has a panic attack in Chapter 4 because of circumstances before and after a single-vehicle accident. No one is injured. Phil takes emergency meds.

Driving back towards the city, the rain fades away but the winds get worse. Phil’s hands are sure on the wheel, and he slows his speed intentionally so the gusts don’t push him out of his lane. Clint tries hard not to fall asleep again (the cheesecake was as awesome as he had hoped) by making conversation.

“So Halloween is this week,” Clint says, as they drive through a sloping valley road and are protected from the worst of the wind. “And there’s a thing in the evening I was going to invite you to.”

“Go on,” Phil doesn’t take his eyes from the road but he’s listening.

“You ever heard of an Alley Cat? It’s a race for bike messengers sort of like a scavenger hunt. We get points for time and checkpoints individually, and there’s a team score at the end. It’s kind of like messenger Olympics. I’d like if you could come watch my team kick lots of asses.”

“Don’t you get hurt doing that?” Phil’s voice has a note of tension in it. “And didn’t someone die last year?”

“Not- no! Not in our race!” Clint stumbles over his words trying to explain. “The guys who pick the routes are old messengers themselves and they don’t want to see us broken so it’s always like a steeplechase, lots of stairs and weird stuff. One year we had to go through the back kitchen of a pizza place and the delivery was taking a pizza to the last checkpoint. I think Bucky arranged that one so he could stuff his face, but we all got some at the end.”

“If it’s Halloween, are there costumes?” Phil’s got a little quirk to his eyebrow that doesn’t read like anxiety to Clint. 

“Full costume got old as soon as Sam got his fake wings stuck in a revolving door and came in last.” Clint snorts his laugh and shakes his head. “We kind of do face paint and team shirts now. Accessories are optional. Glow sticks, bracelets, that kind of stuff.”

“Sounds fun.”

“For real?” Clint grins, and yeah, Phil is mirroring his smile even though he won’t take his eyes off the road. “Yeah! Yeah, I can get you a team shirt if you really want, I mean, you don’t have to if you don’t want?”

Phil chuckles. “You know, I do go outdoors sometimes. And I think team shirts are awesome.”

“Cool! I’m gonna text Steve and get him to print you one.” He’s a couple of minutes digging out his phone while Phil navigates the merge back onto the highway.

 

646-555-2797: i got a date for monster smash can u make phil a shirt?

Steve: If it goes ahead. We’re just going to make that call after the hurricane makes landfall.

646-555-2797: wait what hurricane

Steve: Storm system got upgraded so we’re all just waiting for the worst. You better head to high ground.

646-555-2797: im with phil in a car

Steve: Get him to turn on the radio.

“Uh, Phil? Steve says there’s a hurricane?” Clint frowns at the screen of his phone, which is flickering between zero and two bars. “And my service is going to shit.”

“Hold on.” Phil doesn’t have to take his hands off the wheel to engage the radio, it’s all fancy buttons and cruise control. There’s a fuzz of static and some voices but Clint can’t make them out. Phil cocks his head, listening intently.

Clint watches him, waiting for some kind of good news but that doesn’t seem to be what Phil’s hearing. His mouth flattens into a thin line and his knuckles tighten on the steering wheel.

“What’s it say?” He hates even having to ask, but the radio is just a squawk in the tinny amplification of his hearing aids.

“Major roads closed. Local traffic only. Wind warnings-” The car rocks a little under a buffet of wind and Clint flinches. “- obviously there’s wind warnings. Probably power grid fluctuations, that’s great, that means no traffic lights. Flooding.”

“Can you get home?”

Phil’s mouth twitches. “Probably. But not until you’re somewhere safe.”

“I’ll be fine.” Clint protests, “My bike doesn’t need traffic lights to get me anywhere.”

“You are not cycling in a hurricane.”

Clint rolls his eyes. “I bike through the winter when there’s snow and everyone wants to kill me. A little water isn’t going to stop me.”

“Clint…”

“Okay,” he caves. Why worry Phil any more than he probably is already? “You can drop me off near the Link, it’s where I’d go anyway. Bowery and Houston is the closest?”

Phil nods, and Clint can see him mentally calculating the route. The Lower East Side can be a bit of a clusterfuck because of the bridge overpass, and Clint doesn’t drive. Getting a car to follow cycling directions probably isn’t going to help, so Clint keeps his mouth shut.

“Bridges are closing, it’ll have to be Holland Tunnel,” Phil shoulder checks his blind spots and changes lanes smoothly. “Next interchange will take us in.”

The traffic heading into the city is sparse, but the closer they get to the tunnel, the stream of headlights travelling west grows steadier. The gusts of wind bring fat raindrops that explode against the windscreen and blow away like quicksilver. When Phil slows to a crawl for the tollbooth to read his electronic pass card, it’s like being in a carwash, minus the suds.

The tunnel, surprisingly, is dry, and the yellow sodium lights don’t so much as flicker as they drive down. Clint’s ears clog up and he holds his nose to pop them. 

When they emerge from the tunnel, it’s like entering into one of the video games Clint has watched Loki playing. Streets are deserted, shop fronts are boarded and chained up, and city barricades are blocking off nonessential side streets. As they pass by Tribeca’s Canal Street Station, Clint sees transit police turning people away from the entrance.

“Aw, look at the water.” Clint cranes his neck. There’s more wind than rain hitting Phil’s car, but the sides of the road are brimming with brown, foamy runoff that’s not even draining into the sewers. Each grate they splash by is swamped, the water swirling in deep vortexes and pushing on to seek lower ground. “My place floods when the street cleaners come by, it’s probably underwater by now.”

“You haven’t thought about moving?” Phil’s mouth is set in a tight line.

“Hell, no, there’s nowhere I can afford to live with that much space. And it’s right next to a laundry place so I can always get the good dryer.”

Phil’s brows knit and he opens his mouth to say something when they hit a wash of water and debris flooding down a side street from overburdened storm drains.

"Oh shit!" The water grabs at the car's tires. The back end slews around, he tries to correct, they waver on the asphalt and then the car goes into a spin, violently tossing them sideways. Clint's head makes contact with the passenger side window and there's a crack of pain that stuns him. Phil's weight hits his shoulder, barely restrained by the seatbelt, as they shudder to a rocking stop.

Phil's face is a sickly shade of white, and his hands are clamped onto the steering wheel so tightly Clint can see the tendons standing out in his fingers. Something wet is tickling the side of Clint’s face and he wipes it away with the back of his hand. It comes away red because, shit, he’s bleeding.

“Phil are you okay?” His voice sounds muffled, too throaty. Crap. One of his hearing aids is busted. He claws the broken hook of plastic away from his ear. The battery case is cracked from contact against the window and that’s what has sliced into the skin. “Ugh.” At least the ear mold is intact, and he stuffs it in his pocket.

“I’m okay, I’m okay,” Phil’s breathing is coming too shallow for this to be true, though, and he fumbles at the release for his seatbelt, unable to make his hands work. His jaw is clenched.

“I’m gonna help, just let me help you.” Clint digs against Phil’s hip for the belt, drawn extra tight from the sudden stop. He jams his thumb into the button and for a minute he thinks it might be stuck. Broken? Then the seatbelt latch gives way and the belt snakes across Phil’s chest. Phil grabs onto the sleeve of Clint’s leather jacket and doesn’t let go.

Clint wriggles free of his own seatbelt one-handed. “Hey, hey, we’re okay. Do you want out?” Phil nods mutely and Clint leans over him to free the door latch. Phil kicks the door and climbs out, never losing his grip on Clint’s wrist. Clint follows him, scrambling over the driver’s seat. He thinks Phil’s going to regret that later when he has to wedge his foot against the console to get out, but then he’s out and standing in the wind and rain next to Phil and he has other problems.

Phil drags him to the sidewalk and they huddle under the ratty awning of a boarded-up bodega until he gets his breathing under control. His shoulders are shaking just enough that he shudders when he exhales. Clint sits next to him, back against the corrugated metal shutters of the bodega.

The SUV is half on the sidewalk, facing the wrong way. Two tires that Clint can see are flat, maybe from the junk they ran over, maybe from their impact with the curb. The hazard lights are flashing, and the amber light reflects on the wet cobblestones and gleams in the corners of Phil’s eyes. His lips are moving but Clint can’t hear any words. He puts his hand on Phil’s knee.

“Hey.”

“Sorry,” says Phil, “I’m sorry. I’m a good driver, this shouldn’t happen.” He lapses into silence again, head bowed and hands clamped under his armpits. Rain trickles through his hair and down his forehead.

“It was an accident,” there isn’t anything Clint can do but reassure him. “Nobody’s hurt. We can call a tow.”

Phil leans against him, drawing breaths of air that huff wet steam in the headlights. His breathing is slowing, getting gradually deeper. Where Phil’s shoulder is pressed into Clint, he can feel the shaking calm down a little. He gives Phil a couple more breaths, and pulls out his cell phone.

“You got a number for me to call?”

Phil chokes a snort. “You hate making phone calls.”

“Yeah I do ‘cause I’m deaf as a post, but this looks like a pretty good time to get over myself.” Clint shows him the dial screen on his phone. “You got Triple A?”

“Why do you have Triple A in your call list?” Phil scowls, but he’s shifting his body, making motions like he may be heading back into normal territory again.

“I’ve been hit by so many cars with the sticker that I like to call and complain after they don’t stop to see if I’m okay. I’m pretty good memorizing license plates.”

“That’s horrible.”

“Yeah, it is.” Clint shrugs. “You want me to call?”

Phil nods. He fumbles in his breast pocket for his wallet, extracts his member card and passes it to Clint.

“American Auto Association,” a tinny, frazzled voice crackles into Clint’s hearing aid and he winces. “How many I assist you?”

“Uh, I’m calling for Member Number 6137672776. He’s, uh, indisposed, we just had a single vehicle accident at Spring and Mercer, uh, Lower East Side.”

“Anyone injured?”

“No, just need a tow, ‘cause the tires are done.”

“Hon, you’re gonna have to wait until the morning now, all my drivers–“ something something “- because of this weather-“ and then something else Clint can’t make out, fuck, he hates the phone, “- alright hon?”

“No, no, I’m hard of hearing, hold on. Go slow.”

She starts again, slower. “My drivers are all backed up,’ something something “- you 10am tomorrow.”

“10am, alright.” 

Something –“P dash nine seven eight three-“ Something, fuck, she’s giving him a reference number. 

“Hold on, I said I’m deaf and it’s fucking raining.”

A cold hand slides to his wrist, and then Phil’s quickly disarming him of the treacherous smartphone and holding it to his own ear.

“This is the cardholder, can you please repeat what you were saying to my friend?” He listens intently, nods. “10am will be fine, the car is mostly off the street. Yes, there’s an emergency kit in the car. Thank you I can pass that along to the authorities.” He hangs up with a touch of the screen.

“Fuck,” is what Clint says, kicking an uneven brick in the curb with his foot. 

“Yeah,” is what Phil says, passing Clint the phone back. When he takes it, their fingers brush and Phil doesn’t flinch.

Phil holds it together long enough to get a couple of orange plastic triangles out of the trunk and stick them near the edges of his SUV. He clicks the fob an unnecessary amount of time to ensure the doors are locked, then shoves his hands deep into his pockets and looks around.

“If you were gonna say ‘now what?’ I have a suggestion,” Clint squints against the rain. “We’re only a few blocks from the Link and we can hang out there until this fucking thing is over.”

Phil nods, and shrugs into his collar. “Well, we’re already wet. What’s a little walk?”

Clint takes the lead, heading along the sidewalk away from the ditched SUV. Phil gives it a sad little look back, but doesn’t say anything else. They cross Broadway, and Clint’s surprised to see an erratic flow of traffic heading South. It’s mostly cabs, a couple of buses, some police cars with flashing lights.

“Guess everyone’s gotta get somewhere,” Clint muses. He can see the lights change all the way down, maybe even to City Hall. He had never thought much about being able to time the lights, he’d just always been better at seeing things far away. Some of the other couriers were envious of his skill, which is where the Hawkeye Courier name had come from.

As they cross with the lights, Clint sees a couple of shadowy forms on wheels and a flashing red light flickering on the sidewalk ahead of them. 

“Hey, Hawk, is that you? Where’s your ride?” The two cyclists pull up and one of them switched off the waterproof camera mounted to his bike’s handlebars. “We were just out getting some crazy footage of this storm.”

“Not on wheels tonight, I had a thing,” Clint motions towards Phil. “These are a couple of guys I work with sometimes, Pete and Wade. This is my friend Phil.”

“Oh, your ‘friend’ friend? This is the guy? Only a little jealous.”

Clint shakes his head and tries not to blush too much. “Thanks, Wade.”

“Too bad you don’t have your bike,” Pete says. “You should see the craziness. There’s a couple of trees down across Union Square, we’re heading down to WTC.”

“Yeah we kind of ran in to some of that craziness, I think we’re good. Just need to get dry and we’ll be okay.”

At Clint’s words, the air fills with a weird, sizzling crackle and flashes of eerie green light silhouette the buildings against the cloudy sky.

“Uh oh,” Wade says, and the power goes out.


	5. Chapter 5

It’s pretty dark in Manhattan when the lights go off, Clint discovers. As in, there’s no streetlights because the power is off, and all the other lights that are also supposed to be on also don’t work. Because there’s no electricity.

“Sweet!” Pete whoops, turning the handlebar camera on again. “Dude, we have to get this on film, come on, Wade!”

“See ya round, Hawk! And Hawk’s ‘friend’ friend with the nice butt.”

“Oh god,” Clint facepalms when the two have finally departed on their bikes, “Everyone I know is so embarrassing. How is this my life?”

“Are those the guys who run the coffee shop?” Phil asks.

“Oh god, no, that’s Bucky and Steve. Steve is like a normal, normal, super good-looking guy. Bucky is… intense. Those two loons are just guys from the bike scene who bet everything they had on me the first year we had a Scramble and won pretty big. I’ve kinda been their hero ever since.”

“I’m not going to lie, you have been pretty heroic so far,” replies Phil, and Clint actually stops in his tracks. No, he must have heard that wrong.

“Can you repeat that?” He shakes his head like a wet dog, as if that will make it any better.

“Heroic.” Phil fingerspells ‘hero’ alongside for emphasis. “You. Tonight,” he signs.

‘Bullshit’ escapes Clint’s hands even before the words can escape his mouth. “Your car is stranded and we’re still soaking wet. Neither of us is doing so great. Let’s pat ourselves on the back when we actually get indoors, okay?”

Phil makes a grunting noise that sounds like a muffled curse word or two, and he shrugs deeper into his jacket. The collar’s turned up but the fabric is darkened with rain. Raindrops shine on his earlobes and turn his neat haircut into dark points. And Clint has never wanted to kiss someone any more than right then, but they are both so far out of ‘okay’ that it would be a disaster. Fuck.

They keep walking, turning once more to head north. All the buildings around them are black, windowed storefronts occasionally throwing an emergency light to the sidewalk, but most are dark inside. Cell phone flashlights and candles start to flicker in upper apartment windows. It’s pretty quiet except for the rush of wind and water. Oh, and the fire and police sirens as emergency vehicles rush by on Bowery. 

“Just here.”

There’s the rattle of a generator starting up, and as Clint and Phil reach the battered red awning of the Missing Link, Steve is padlocking it to the chain-link fencing of the park next door. A fat black extension cord runs through the mail slot into the coffee shop.

“Better safe than sorry, huh?” Clint comments.

“Jesus, Clint what happened to you?” Steve says sharply. “You better come inside right now. Power just went so I figure we should keep the barista at temp in case people need warming up.”

“Yeah, we just saw some crazy explosions down that way,” Clint points in general to the direction they’ve come, “Generators or something?”

“Transformers,” Phil supplies, his voice tight and dry. “Con Edison yards are down there on the East River.”

“Oof, so I guess we’re in it for the long haul, then. That’ll take a while to fix.” Steve puckers his lips like a grandmother and pulls the door open. “Inside, both of you.”

This is Clint’s second home. The Missing Link is a well-worn place, with reclaimed pallet-wood tables and wall panelling. The space at the front holds a few café tables and some booths, with art and shiny metal bits strewn around for ambiance. Towards the back there’s a small kitchen space and a metal grating pulled across the mechanic’s shop. The ambiance is even stronger now, because behind the bar, a dark-haired man with a ponytail is lighting candles with a stuttering match. 

“Buck, you got the first aid kit?” Steve calls. “Clint’s hurt.”

“No, he’s not,” Clint protests, but Steve is bigger than him and he’s hustled to a booth and made to sit down while Steve mops at his neck with a clean towel. It comes away wet and bloody. He watches as Phil’s face blanches. “It’s fine, Phil, I’m ok, I just hit my head on the window when we spun out.”

Steve puts stinging stuff all over the side of his head above his ear, and pats it dry. “I don’t think you need stitches, butterflies should hold it.” He applies two of the tiny white bandages behind Clint’s ear with careful fingers. Clint suppresses a shiver as he does so, trying to keep his flinch reflex subdued. Steve has done field first aid on Clint before, but usually it’s scraped up arms and legs. He’s not keen on people working on his head when he can’t see or hear them.

There’s a scuffle and some movement where Phil is standing, and Bucky yells “Whoa!” and Clint strains to stay still so Steve won’t mess up the bandage. When Steve’s broad shoulder finally clears his line of vision, Bucky’s got Phil draped over one arm, and Phil’s sort of weirdly disjointed, he’s standing but just barely and his head is down.

“Shit! Phil!” Clint pushes Steve aside and takes Phil’s other arm. Immediately, Phil grabs onto his sleeve with a white-knuckled hand and doesn’t let go. Clint steers him into the booth. “Are you ok? Breathe, deep breaths. Don’t pass out on me, you’re heavy.”

Phil’s eyes are glassy and unfocused, and when Clint presses his hand on his forehead, it’s clammy and cold. His breathing is rapid and shallow. Clint loosens his tie, god, why is the knot so tight? The wet silk is near strangling. Phil’s jacket is soaked through and his dress shirt is stuck to him.

“Christ, you’re freezing,” Clint keeps up the muttering commentary as he peels Phil’s wet jacket off him, pats down the pockets. There’s a cell phone, wallet, hand sanitizer, a couple of pairs of black nitrile gloves and a small orange prescription bottle. “Just gonna leave these here for you so you can get to them.” He lays the items on the booth’s table, and drapes the jacket over a chair. Steve wordlessly passes him a blanket, which he wraps around Phil’s shoulders. “Yeah, there we go, it’s alright, just take it easy.” To Steve’s questioning look, Clint just says “Bit of a rough time. He’ll be okay.”

Steve and Bucky give them space, and eventually Phil’s pallid shivering turns into choked gasps for air, and wheezes that gradually relax into regular patterns again. Phil reaches out for the prescription bottle and fights with the lid, tips a pill into his mouth.

“Buck, can I get a bottle of water? Sealed?” Clint catches it as it’s thrown across the café, and he puts it on the table in front of Phil and squeezes hand sanitizer onto the lid.

The relief coming from Phil, even wordlessly, is palpable. He rubs the sanitizer along the cap and between his hands in a calming ritual, then twists the cap open and takes a drink.

“Okay, you’re okay?”

Phil nods, takes another sip of water, tests his voice. “I wasn’t… I was okay until I saw the blood on your neck.”

Clint bows his head and feels the bulky gauze and plaster Steve taped behind his ear. “It’s ok, I just got bumped. I didn’t know it was bleeding. Sorry I was so gross.”

“It’s not the blood, it’s –“ Phil shakes his head a twitch sideways, presses his hand against his chest in that familiar line Clint’s seen before. “I hurt you. I never want to hurt you.”

“No, look,” Clint digs in his pants pocket and puts the broken earmold and purple battery case on the table just far enough away from Phil’s things. “It’s busted. Better the battery than my head.”

Phil processes the information. It seems to placate him a little, and he nods. 

“You gotta get out of your wet stuff. Steve’s got some dry gear in the rest room, come on.” Clint shepherds him away with a gentle halo of not-quite-touching hands while Phil folds into a miserable angle. “Here, in here.” Clint pushes the door open and holds it with his foot so Phil can follow him in. He slides the bolt shut and heaves a sigh.

Phil’s in a bad way, Clint can’t believe he hadn’t noticed it until now. His lips are faint blue on the outside edges, and his cheeks are totally pale white. Even the blanket across his shoulders isn’t doing much to warm him because his shirt is soaked and stuck to his trembling torso.

“Aw, rain,” Clint digs in Steve’s backup gear cupboard and pulls out a dry hoodie. It’s Steve-sized, which means about two sizes too big for Phil, but he finds a white t-shirt with a v-neck that will fit okay. “Here, put these on instead, you’re freezing.”

Phil's fingers hesitate on the buttons of his shirt, but he relents. When the soaked cotton peels away, he's wearing only a singlet and his skin is pale and blotchy from the cold. He presses his fingers together against his sternum, that anxious gesture Clint's seen before, and where his hands meet there is the tail end of a raised, white scar. It looks surgical, and it looks old.

"I'm sorry," Phil winces, but he's trying not to turn away so Clint can follow what he's saying. "I'm really bad at this." He pulls the dress shirt off and gently lays it across the towel bar. His singlet is stuck to his ribs and he plucks at the waistline before making the decision to tug it off over his head. He’s stripped and shivering, and Clint hands him a clean towel.

"No, no," Clint says, "You're fine at this." Phil doesn't turn away from him, just bows his head and pulls the towel closer around his neck.

"Can you… I need… " Phil hesitates, not sure how to proceed. "You can touch me. Please. If you want."

"Is this okay?" Clint lays a hand on Phil's shoulder and Phil leans into it. But Phil presses closer, and Clint finds himself wrapping his entire arm across his towelled shoulders. Phil's eyes flutter closed and he stills, barely breathing. Clint's world narrows into that moment, the warmth where his body heat is transferring to Phil, the faint scent of clean soap or shaving gel from him, how the trembling in Phil's body is slowly subsiding. He feels the vibrations in his own chest when he speaks;

"I really like you," Clint finds himself saying, like the words are falling out of him instead of breathing. Phil shifts against him but doesn't open his eyes. "I like everything about you. I like that you took me on a date during a hurricane even though it was terrifying. I like that you’re okay with my friends thinking you have a nice butt. I like so much stuff about you, and I really want… to kiss you, kinda, but I know I gotta ask permission. So I'm asking."

Phil's eyes crack open, and Clint think he's going to back away, maybe pull the towel away from his hand, make some kind of excuses and get the hell out, but there's a smile at the corner of his mouth. He brushes his palm against his own chest, and Clint sees the need and that he's signing 'please' and that yeah, it's okay. Then somehow his face is close to Phil's and there's breath across his cheek and yeah, Phil's kissing him. Clumsily, because it's not the best position, and because Clint hasn't done this in ages, but he kisses him back, careful not to push too hard.

"Thank you," Phil says, and his hand traces the sign from his lips to rest against Clint' chest.

"Uhm." Clint doesn't really know what to do after that, to stay like that, or give Phil his space, but Phil makes the decision for him. He stays in physical contact with Clint, hip or shoulder, while he shrugs into the v-neck and oversized hoodie. 

“Think you’re gonna be okay?” Clint asks. “I don’t think either of us is getting home tonight.”

“You’re here,” Phil says, “Everything will be alright.”

Clint can’t help but make a goofy smile as he leads Phil back out to the main café space. He installs Phil back in the booth with the blanket wrapped around him. Steve turns on an old vintage radio and dials in for weather updates, which he listens to and makes granny faces at the prospects. 

“Okay, so what happens now?” Clint wonders aloud.

“I have to notify Transport that there’s been an incident with my vehicle,” Phil says slowly, “Eventually. I did just take a pretty big dose of Ativan and it’s starting to kick in.”

“It’s okay, you can crash here. It’s safe.” Clint helps Phil arrange the blanket as he moves towards horizontal. “I got you.”

“Thanks,” Phil says and that’s pretty much the last thing he says because his eyes get all glassy and he droops slowly asleep. Clint feels so protective that he stays with him until all the tension drops out of his shoulders and his breathing evens out.

All he really wants to do is curl up with Phil, but Clint extracts himself from the booth. He orders a big bowl of latte from Steve. Bucky’s stopped lurking at the back of the shop and he’s rigging up a power strip along the bar to charge his phone.

“You think you’re closing tonight, or can we stay over? My bike’s in Midtown.” At Bucky’s look, Clint shrugs, “It’s at Matt’s place, he’s the only dude I know near Phil’s work, I’m not gonna leave my bike on the curb overnight.”

“I guess we’re open. We got power.” Bucky shrugs. And with great timing, the front door swings open to admit a gust of wind and a bedraggled figure wheeling a bicycle. Clint can see Widow’s red hair plastered to her neck under her helmet and skull-faced bandana.

“Hey Nat,” Clint says. Widow ditches her helmet, leans her bike against a table and shoves her bandana up to clear her hair away from her face. 

“I thought you were out of town,” she says, frowning. “With Phil.”

“Yeah, I was.” Clint motions towards the booth where Phil is cocooned. “Plans changed.”

She surveys the blanketed shape and the darkest scowl Clint has ever seen crosses her face. 

“What. Did. You. Do. To Him.” It’s not even a question, just a series of murderous words. Clint feels his composure cracking.

“Oh, fuck, Nat, we crashed his car! I mean, he crashed it, the storm crashed it, he’s ok, I hit my head a bit but then he was freaking OUT and I don’t know what to do, like he can’t touch things in regular life, now there’s no power.” Clint’s almost crying, he didn’t even know he had this much held back. “And Wade said he had a cute butt and I’m trying to be a normal grownup!”

“Oh, Clint,” the murder look fades and she grabs him in a big hug, squeezing his choking sobs back into his throat. He sniffs snot out of his nose, ugh, he’s a terrible adult. “You’re doing fine. This isn’t normal.”

Clint nods, and breaks away to grab a handful of tissues for his nose. “Nothing in my life is freakin’ normal.”

Nat shrugs. “I wouldn’t want it any other way. Is there food? I’m starving.”

“Yeah.” Clint waves at Steve, who has already dished up a couple of bowls of chili and giant slabs of bread. Nat grabs them and they devour them perched at a café table where Clint can keep an eye on Phil.

Through the evening, The Link ends up turning into a centre of operations for the neighbourhood, with people coming in and out through the torrential rain, leaving updates on the big blackboard near the door with flooding, street closures, and who is safely at home. Everyone charges their phones for a few minutes, so Steve puts on a vat of vegan tomato soup and starts feeding them while they wait. Bucky breaks out the camping gear and gives Clint and Nat sleeping bags, and they push tables away to make more sleeping space.

The Link never really closes, but eventually Steve locks the register and put a “FREE” sign on the soup and coffee and he and Bucky disappear into the rest room for a few hours. Clint beds down on the other side of the booth from Phil, and Nat curls up in a chair. When he takes his remaining hearing aid out, the rattle and smash of the weather turns into a dull roar, like the sea. It’s almost soothing. Clint falls asleep watching Phil’s breath rise and fall.


End file.
